SEC seeks access to ‘terabytes’ of Ripple employees’ Slack messages

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a court motion seeking access to Ripple employees’ Slack messages, according to attorney James Filan.

#XRPCommunity #SECGov v. #Ripple #XRP BREAKING: SEC files emergency motion for a discovery conference regarding Slack communications. Seeks order compelling Ripple to search and produce relevant communications between Ripple employees on Slack.https://t.co/AQ8Av1igoV

— James K. Filan 🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@FilanLaw) August 9, 2021

Regulators say Ripple staff used Slack as frequently as email. As a result, Ripple may be required to provide the SEC “more than a million messages, spanning terabytes of data.”

The filing notes that at the outset Ripple agreed to disclose the information but provided only 1,468 messages. The SEC says the messages contained “critically important and unique” data.

The material concerns Ripple’s aims to spur speculative trading of XRP, concerns about XRP’s price, the impact of token sales on its business, and the asset’s regulatory status.

«A month later, after repeated statements that Slack disclosures were complete, Ripple admitted that due to a data-processing error it had gathered only a small portion of the messages, while “a huge amount of information” had not been collected or reviewed», the filing states.

Officials say the Slack data could refresh witnesses’ memories for questions asked during testimony.

Lawyer Jeremy Hogan noted that the SEC filed the motion to prove that XRP is a security, adding that the regulator “has had some success with this argument in the past.”

The SEC has had some success with this argument in the past and it makes sense as a strategy since in all substantive ways XRP is NOT like a security. We will need to see Ripple’s response before taking a gander as to whether the court will order production of the documents.

— Jeremy Hogan (@attorneyjeremy1) August 9, 2021

The Commission also argued that Slack communications could be used to refresh witnesses’ memories; Ripple’s counsel noted the privilege concerns and the ongoing disputes over deliberative process privilege.

According to Filan, Ripple expects to file an eight-page letter in the coming days outlining its position.

#XRPCommunity #SECGov v. #Ripple #XRP Ripple files request for extension until Aug. 16, 2021 to respond to SEC’s emergency motion on Slack discovery dispute.

— James K. Filan 🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@FilanLaw) August 9, 2021

The parties also debated the deliberative process privilege. The Commission attempted to deny Ripple’s motion to compel the appearance of a former SEC official, William Hinman, in court.

Filan said Ripple plans to file an eight-page letter outlining its position in the coming days.

BREAKING: Parties tee up deliberative process privilege dispute with respect to documents withheld by the SEC; joint request for 8-page letters.

— James K. Filan 🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@FilanLaw) August 9, 2021

Earlier, Ripple lawyers called the SEC’s claims unfounded and filed an additional notice in support of the request to terminate the SEC case.

Recall that the Cayman Islands-registered Binance Holdings Limited was the subject of the request for disclosure; Ripple sought disclosure of documents from the Cayman Islands-registered Binance Holdings Limited.

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